Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Ain't no drag

A proposal to ban Minneapolis stores from handing out plastic bags — and require them to charge customers for paper bags — has cleared an important hurdle at City Hall.

Monday, following a lengthy public hearing, the City Council’s Health, Environment and Community Engagement committee voted 4-0 to forward the plan to the full council. It appears the plan may have enough support to pass the 13-member council; in addition to the four committee members who voted in favor of the plan, two other council members attended the meeting to voice their support. A fifth committee member, Council Member Andrew Johnson, expressed support for the plan but abstained from voting because he intends to work on an amendment that would make the policy more “consumer and business friendly.”

So think about the utopia that Minneapolis is creating -- you need to buy something and you're not particularly wealthy. You might have to carry what you're purchasing, say, groceries, around on public transportation, which for most people still means a bus. The plastic bags make it easier. But we don't believe in easy in Minneapolis.

Don't worry, though -- you can always get all the bags you want in Roseville or Richfield.

5 comments:

When they banned them in Seattle, I started buying plastic bags on the roll for the dog's productions. Then I got used to having a tidy, tight roll in my pocket instead of a reused Safeway bag or two haphazardly crumpled. So much so that when we moved back to Durham (which, though pretty blue for the neighborhood, has other things to worry about, hence, no plastic bag ban)...I kept buying the specialty bags. And now throw away (at least 95% of) the plastic ones from the grocery store instead of re-using them.

Hy-Vee is entering our market with a splash and offering on-line shopping with cheap delivery (or free, if your order is over $100). I'm going to try it, and I'm wondering what they deliver the groceries in. Probably a box, rather than a bag (plastic or otherwise). I'm wondering if Hy-Vee re-uses the box.

In my mind, the best thing for this is what most stores I patronize already do; give you a nickel back when you bring your own bag. I compare the cost of the grocery store bags (useful for dog poop and garbage alike) with that sold by "GLAD", and make my choice.

Suffice it to say that I'm not persuaded these bans do anything except for substitute one type of plastic waste for another. Oh, and make the city council feel good about themselves while their schools are awful and their kids are in gangs, I guess.

I ask the question "why" because the usual reason has to do with preventing global warming, which as we all know is the greatest scientific fraud in history. The other reason is preventing plastic waste, and the better solution is to simply recycle those bags, as many communities (or people) do. Politicians don't care about solutions, just power.